A Sokoto based Islamic Scholar, Malam Bello Yabo has been arrested by the police for allegedly making disparaging remarks against the Governor of Kaduna state, Malam Nasir El-rufa’i.

Yabo was arrested around 4pm on Friday and according to a reliable information he was transported to Kaduna where he would be charged. Malam Abdullahi Abubakar Yabo who claimed to be the nephew of the scholar told our reporter that some plain-clothed policemen came to his residence while they were saying their Asr prayer and immediately after the prayer, they called him aside and showed him a paper which turned out to be warrant of arrest issued by a Magistrate court in Kaduna.

“After reading the paper, Malam did not utter a word, he just moved into his house, came back and entered their vehicle. It was after they left that he called and notified us about the arrest , that the Attorney General of Kaduna state had written a petition against him over his recent remarks against their Governor,” Abdullahi Said

Abdullahi later told our reporter on phone, that Malam called again and told them he would be taken to court after the Sallah break. Yabo was in a video clip believed to be recorded in one of his Ramadan preaching, condemned Governor El-rufa’i and scholars of Kaduna state for the continuous ban on religious gathering in the state.

Yabo in the video, disparaged the Kaduna state council of Ulamah for allowing what he described as a ‘small bird’, referring to El-rufa’i to be dictating to them.

However, spokesman of the Sokoto state Police Command, ASP Muhammad Sadiq could not be reached at the time of filing this report but an officer privy to the arrest, said it was carried out by men of the Kaduna Police Command with the support of the Sokoto Command.

This was not the first time, the scholar was arrested at the instance of a sitting Governor, as it would be recalled he was arrested and detained during Governor Attahiru Bafatawa’s tenure in Sokoto state over a similar offence.

Muslims in Ogun State will celebrate Eid-el-Fitri under lockdown following another one-week extension of the lockdown on Friday. Governor Dapo Abiodun said the government was constrained to extend the sit-at-home order for the fourth consecutive week, after reviewing coronavirus cases in the last one week.

The governor equally foreclosed any relaxation before the Sallah, possibly on Sunday, maintaining that the window of relaxation fixed for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, stands. He expressed concern that the running week recorded highest number of COVID – 19 cases so far, while the level of compliance to safety measures has not improved.

I have to state that after all considerations, we are constrained to take the painful but necessary decision to continue the eased lockdown of Ogun State for another one week till Sunday, 31st, May, 2020.

“As we have always maintained the delicate balance between lives and livelihood, we will continue to have our window of relaxation, from 7am to 5pm on Monday, 25th May, 2020; Wednesday, 27th May, 2020 and Friday, 29th May, 2020. We must also bear in mind that the daily curfew from 8pm to 6am and the ban on non-essential inter-State travel as directed by Mr. President still stand,” he said.

The governor hinted that officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have arrived the state to inspect and possibly certify the State Molecular Laboratory, which was purchased and installed barely a month ago.

He expressed hope that the lab will be certified and ready for full operation in the next few days.

Despite assurances from power firms on improved services during the five-week lockdown over the novel coronavirus (aka COVID-19) in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, scores of consumers have berated the services, with 2,715 consumer complaints out of which 953 were not immediately resolved. However, others rated the services of the Distribution Companies (DisCos) as satisfactory.

Daily Trust conducted a survey of consumers in Abuja and across some states on their experiences. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) opened a ‘Situation Room’ for its officials to monitor power complaints from 6th April, a week after the lockdown began.

Records for these complaints collated for 20 days of the situation room’s operation, from 18th April till 7th May 2020, showed that consumers filed 2,715 complaints and the DisCos are yet to resolve 953 of them. At least 2,089 complaints were on service interruptions across the networks of the 11 DisCos of which 1,279 were resolved. Abuja DisCo had the highest with 577 complaints. It resolved 452 while 125 complaints are pending. It was followed by Ibadan DisCo with 353 complaints: it resolved 194 and is left with 159 complaints.

Kaduna DisCo recorded the lowest complaints during the period with 66, but it resolved less than 50 per cent of the cases. Only 23 complaints were cleared and 43 others were unresolved when the records were obtained last week. Outages, high bills worry consumers At new Karu, New Nyanya, Ado and Mararaba Gurku towns in Nasarawa State, customers said the downtime for clearing faults on their power lines took Abuja DisCo longer, leaving them in outage for days. Okoko Darlington who lives in New Karu said: “We had an outage that lasted for four days in April during the lockdown. I

learnt it was due to some poles that fell during a rainstorm but AEDC could not clear it immediately for some reasons.” Alhaji Nura Aliyu, a resident of Mararaba said, “AEDC tried in my area initially when the lockdown started but by mid-April, we had gotten used to darkness as they only bring supply for four hours in the night. “There are days that we wouldn’t get power supply completely despite the stay-at-home order and the promise of improved power supply by Abuja DisCo,” Femi Olushola, a resident of Nyanya town in Abuja noted. “Fault clearing was quite fast in my area.

“There was a time we just tweeted a fault to AEDC and in less than two hours they cleared the fault and restored power to us in Gwarinpa part of Abuja,” Mrs Margaret Ekpenyong noted. Cases of epileptic power supply and power rationing abound in Ugbokolo, Otukpo and Makurdi towns in Benue; in Jos (Plateau) and even in Bauchi which are under Jos DisCo, our reporter found.

“We were used to ‘power rotation’ before we heard of plans for better supply but that never manifested for us at Rayfield,” said Okolie George, a resident of Jos. However, some residents of Kaduna lauded Kaduna Electric for regular supply. Gabriel Akogu who resides at Ungwan Television said: “You can almost predict when they will take the power.

“There was a day we had nearly 22 hours of power supply in April. “For me, they did well and should sustain it.” NERC published the Capping of Estimated Billing Order with effect from 20th of February 2020 to deter the 11 DisCos from the long tradition of what power consumers described as ‘crazy’ monthly electricity bills. But customers said despite the order, their bills returned high.

The All Electricity Consumers Protection Forum (AECPF) in Lagos noted some of its members’ complaints. A consumer in Abule Egba, Lagos who was expecting 135 kilowatts hour (kwh) as R2S was given 257 which is about N7,500 instead of N3,700 by the NERC template. Another customer in Mpape, Abuja who ought to receive a bill of N1,980 got over N3,000 contrary to AEDC template. In Mowe, Ogun State, a customer said he got N14,234 as against the amount stipulated in the IBEDC template. Some consumers also recorded non-response to their meter applications.

Sunday Oyiji said his application for MAP meter in Abuja was on hold as he was not getting any response from AEDC to go and pay for his meter despite applying for nearly a month.

“The restriction on movement affected the MAP process as many of the installers are not working directly with AEDC, so they were not able to go and install at customers’ premises,” an official of AEDC at Mararaba Business Unit in Nasarawa State explained.

The Federal Government has said that the Madagascar herbal remedy for COVID-19 will be subjected to the normal regulatory processes before it can be administered for use in Nigeria. The National Coordinator, Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu, said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the 30th joint national briefing of the taskforce.

According to him, following the presidential directive that the herbal remedy be airlifted to Nigeria, it will be subjected to thr stringent regulatory process within the legal frameworks of the country concerning such circumstance. President Muhammadu Buhari, had ordered the airlift of the Madagascar herbal medicine for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 from Guinea Bissau where Nigeria’s portions were dispatched to for onward delivery to Nigeria.

“I want to start briefly by talking about the Madagascar cure. As directed by the President, I want to state that any medication coming into the country whether it is herbal cure or concoction or normal drug. It has to be subjected to the normal regulatory process.

“The Madagascar cure will be subjected to the normal process we expect within the legal frameworks and guidelines that we have. More importantly, not only to establish its efficacy but for it to be legally registered. “So this drug would go through the normal regulatory process which can be stringent before it can be administered in the country,” Aliyu said.

One hundred and sixty stranded Nigerians in the United States of America arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, yesterday following their evacuation. An update by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said an Ethiopian Airline ET 8509 conveyed the returnees to Nigeria.

The evacuees comprise 92 males, 60 females and eight infants. The evacuation was originally planned to take place on Friday with an Ethiopian Airline flight ET509, but was later moved by a day to Saturday, and the flight changed to ET 8509 according to a circular by the Nigerian Consulate, in the United States.

The plane departed the Newark International Airport, New Jersey on Saturday around 8:20 p.m. local time (1:20 a.m. in Nigeria on Sunday). It was gathered that the Federal Government had stationed five luxury buses and a coaster bus at the airport to move the returnees to isolation centres as soon as they disembarked from the plane.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, had last week, said the Federal Government had made arrangements for hotel accommodation in Lagos and Abuja where the evacuees would undergo a mandatory 14-days supervised quarantine.

The minister had also said the hotels had been inspected by the Port Health Services, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the IPC.

Kaduna State Government has discharged 210 Almajirai out of the 680 returned from neighbouring states due to Cornavirus pandemic. The children were freed to go home after completing their two weeks quarantine period in the state.

The commissioner for Human Services and Social Development, Hafsat Baba, who addressed the children said they tested negative from the virus. She explained that discharged children were among those repatriated from Kano , Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe and Niger state.

She said the children would be handed over to their local government chairmen to hand them over to their parents. “These children were from Kudan, Makarfi, Ikara, Giwa and Zaria local Government Areas of the state and were brought back from states like Kano, Bauchi, Gombe, Niger and Plateau States.

” We are happy to say that two 210 of them would be discharged today (Sunday) having completed their quarantine period of 14 days. Kaduna: Some of the 210 Almajarai, after two weeks quarantine “Those that tested positive have been isolated but those discharged are free to go home and reunite with their family,” she said.

The commissioner also said the children will not be allowed to beg anymore in the state because the government has already banned Almajiri system in the state. She also said that the government will not abandoned them as they return home because the state government will ensure that all the children get western education as they continue with their Islamic education.

The Soba Local Government Chairman Mohammed Mahm cautioned parents against sending their children to beg in the name of seeking qur’anic education. He explained that the council will ensure they educate the parents of the children before handing them over to them.